A variety of dressing articles have been proposed in the past which comprise a sheet or tape made of a patching agent comprising natural rubber as a main ingredient and a drug such as salicylic esters and menthol. Such dressing articles made of a patching agent comprising natural rubber do not always sufficiently adhere to the skin, or possess sufficient agglutinating or non-irritating properties, transparency, oxidation resistance, etc. As a result, dressing articles made of a patching agent comprising a synthetic resin, such as an acrylate/acrylic acid copolymer, and a drug have been recently proposed.
However, the solubility of the drug in the patching agent of these dressing articles is insufficient and an effective amount of the drug cannot be released within a limited period of time. For example, in a dressing article made of a patching agent comprising an acrylate/acrylic acid copolymer and a corticosteroid as a drug, occasionally only about 5 to 15% of the entire content of the drug can be released within 12 hours. Accordingly, when one wants to release a large amount of an expensive drug within a predetermined period of time, the expensive drug must be included in a large amount which makes the treatment even more expensive. Further, such a dressing article does not absorb sweat on the skin, and does not satisfactorily adhere to the skin. These problems constitute serious drawbacks when using dressing articles containing a drug such as a topical therapeutic agent.